


Square One

by Maayacola



Category: Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-01
Updated: 2011-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 19:47:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1400281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maayacola/pseuds/Maayacola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jin's got a lot of regrets. By some miracle, he gets a second chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Square One

When Jin was young, he had all sort of plans about what he wanted to do when he grew up. As he got older, the plans morphed and changed, but in general, he wanted to be world famous, and he wanted a family. 

When Jin turns 45, he has accomplished 50 percent of his goals. That is to say, he has a successful career in both Japan and abroad, although his star is fading with his pretty face, and the wrinkles around his eyes lessen his sex appeal to Japanese girls at steady rate as the years pass. But every day, Jin comes home to an empty apartment, takes a beer out of the fridge, and sits down on his couch. He takes a look at the pictures on his walls, of Reio and his family, and Koki and his girlfriend of 10 years (they’ve yet to tie the knot, but Jin knows it’s only a matter of time.) Of all of his friends, and their families. Of Yamapi and his wife, and their two beautiful daughters, Tomoko and Erika. And he drinks. 

Jin, at age 45, is incredibly successful, works for himself, and is terribly, crushingly, unfathomably lonely. 

Tonight, Jin has just come back from his own birthday party, a small dinner affair with some of his old friends. All of them have moved on in their lives, but they still stay regularly in touch. Jin’s known for being a bit of a recluse these days, so they’d all made a special effort to turn out for his big forty-five. Nakamaru had arranged the whole thing, bless his heart, but Yamapi had been the one to really get people to come. (Or so Kamenashi had said, drunkenly leaning on his shoulder and making a mocking face at Jin about how Jin was too old to be seen with in public, and it would make Kamenashi look old in association.)

Jin had received countless bizarre presents (the vibrating dildo shaped like a guitar from Kusano had caused everyone to die laughing at the table), but Yamapi’s had really taken the cake for weirdness. Jin fingers the monkey’s paw with amusement. Leave it to Yamapi to give him a wish for his birthday.

“When Kamenashi and I did Nobuta, there were two of them on the set. We each took one, because Maki said they creeped her out.” Yamapi chuckles, and takes a sip of his drink. “I used two of the wishes already. I didn’t really have much luck. But there’s a third wish left on it, so you should give it a shot.”

“What did you wish for?” Jin asks, knowing it’s a personal question to ask, even to a best friend. But he still wonders. “Your hair back?” 

Yamapi looks down at the table, drawing lines with his index finger on the patterned surface. “Stuff I knew I couldn’t have,” he whispers, before looking up at Jin and forcing a smile. “But I’m happy, now. I guess,” he adds, cheerfully. The cheer doesn’t reach his eyes. 

Jin takes a sip of his beer, too, and laughs bitterly. “Are any of us where we thought we’d be now?” he questions rhetorically. “Was it worth it? Johnny’s, all of it?”

Yamapi is looking at him now, something soft in his eyes. “Yeah, it was worth it. I met you.”

Jin chuckles, and slugs Pi in the shoulder. “How many of those have you had to drink, Pi?” 

Frowning, Pi takes another sip of his drink. “Not enough,” he replies, but then he smiles. “I’m glad we know each other, Jin. I’m glad you’re a part of my life.”

Jin, despite himself, feels his heart clench. “Me too, Pi, me too.” Sometimes Pi looks at him, and there’s something wrenching and aching in his eyes that Jin doesn’t get. He almost asks about it, but he’s never broken that boundary before.

Pi’s phone rings, and he answers it quickly. “Hey Sayaka, what’s up?” he says. His wife. “Yes, I’ll be home soon. I’m sorry.” Jin hears her yelling into the phone, and winces. 

Pi and Sayaka had married after a whirlwind romance about 15 years ago, and they had two adorable twin daughters and had built a life together that Jin envied. Except for the shrieking, but Jin had heard from Ryo that that came part and parcel with marriage. 

Hanging up the phone, Yamapi looks at Jin apologetically, running a hand through his thin hair. “Gotta go home,” he says, and Jin nods. “Don’t forget to make a wish.” His hand ghosts across the back of Jin’s neck, a physical farewell. Jin’s skin tingles, like it always does when Pi touches him. The touch reminds Jin of the past, when touches between them were daily, a reassuring reminder of their bond.

Koki laughs loudly at something Kamenashi drunkenly slurs, and Jin grins. “Go home, Grandpa,” he goads Pi, and Pi smiles at him, a special smile that has, over the past 30 years, seemed reserved only for him. 

They both turn back towards the other end of the table as Kame screams, and they see Ryo pouring ice water over his head. “Sober up, Skeleton Man,” Ryo hisses. 

Yamapi scratches the back of his head and says “Well, I’ll leave it to you,” and shuffles backwards out of the bar. 

“Thanks,” Jin mumbles wryly.

Now, back at home, the weight of the monkey’s paw heavy in his hand, Jin wonders what he should wish for. 

He looks around his cold, almost barren apartment, and knows there’s only one thing he really CAN wish for.

“I wish I’d found someone to love,” he whispers to the paw, shaking it like Catherine does in Nobuta. “I wish I’d found someone who loved me, that I could love, and that I could not fuck up my life.”

Jin feels a strange tingling in his palm, but chalks it up to his imagination. He’s reverently silent for a moment after he makes his wish, then laughs at himself. 

“It’s just a stupid superstition,” he says to his empty apartment. “It’s not like it’s going to come true, or anything. I’m going to go to sleep, and then I’m going to wake up tomorrow by myself, like I always do.”

Jin laughs, so he doesn’t cry. “Alone, as usual.” 

Jin brushes his teeth, and stares at himself in the mirror. He’s getting old.

When he drifts to sleep, he thinks about Pi’s smile.

The world shifts.

###

When Jin wakes up the next morning, feeling like he’s been hit by a massive eighteen-wheeler, he tries to remember what he had to drink the night before. All he can think of is the two beers he drank with his yakiniku at his party. “I must really be getting old,” he mutters to himself as he cracks open his eyes. The sunlight streaming in through his apartment window does nothing to ease his pounding headache.

But wait. He hasn’t had a window that faced the sunrise since…

Jin’s eyes, heavy and aching, pop wide open. “Where the fuck am I?” he hisses as he struggles to sit up. It won’t be the first time he’s woken up in a strange bed, but it hasn’t really happened since he was about 30. And it would be the first time he’s woken up on such familiar sheets. 

He looks down at the soft, saffron colored sheets that his mom had given him as a housewarming gift way back in 2008, at the way they lay smoothly around him, and then he looks at his flat, smooth stomach, where the tattoo of Lady Liberty he got on his thirty second birthday is conspicuously missing. His hands reach up to touch his face, and it’s smooth, the small scar on his cheek from a minor motorcycle accident is also nowhere to be found.

Jin can feel his throat closing up as his hands roam his body, which is both familiar and unfamiliar…a body he hasn’t had in a really long time. “What the fuck is this?”

Jin’s eyes roll into the back of his head, and he passes out. 

When he comes to again, it’s to the feeling of a warm hand brushing his hair back from his face. 

“Rise and shine, sleepy-head!” Jin opens his eyes to the sight of Pi. But not his Pi. This Pi is 20 years younger, with wavy permed hair and a smooth upper lip. He’s wearing a black tank revealing toned arms and broad, strong shoulders, and his jeans are slung low on his hips. He notices Jin’s stare and guiltily withdraws his hand from Jin’s forehead, flushing. “Sorry,” he mutters, and Jin doesn’t remember him being this shy or this hesitant around him. “Anyway, I made breakfast—Well, lunch, I guess. Take a shower and join me?”

Jin grunts, which Yamapi takes for acceptance, and shuffles out of the room, whistling under his breath. As soon as the door shuts behind Pi, Jin bolts straight up in bed, hyperventilating. This room, this is his room, or was his room, in 2009, when he still shared and apartment with Pi. He takes quick, shallow breaths and buries his face in his hands, feeling his stiff, over-processed hair sticking to his neck and shoulders. “Oh my god,” he whispers. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”

Jin thinks this must be some bizarre dream, so he pinches himself over and over, but he isn’t waking up. He’s still here, in this world that hasn’t been his world in almost 20 years, and he doesn’t know how he got here and…

He has to be sure. 

He runs to the bathroom, and flips on the light.

The person staring back at him is definitely Jin Akanishi. The mole next to his eye, and the features he’s memorized after seeing them day after day for the last 45 years of his life. But they aren’t the same as the features he saw in the mirror when he went to bed the night before.

Somehow, against all logic, and all known rules of the universe, Jin is young again. 

The truth of it hits him, and he leans against the back wall of the bathroom, sliding down it slowly until his butt hits the tile, chilly through the thin material of his briefs. He’s shivering, but not because he’s cold.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, quivering on the floor of the bathroom. Suddenly he is surrounded by warmth, and the familiar smell of ginger—the smell of Pi. “Hey, you okay?” Pi says into Jin’s hair. “It’s your birthday! Be happy!”

Jin turns and buries his face in Pi’s neck. “But which birthday,” he says, his lips brushing against the skin of Pi’s shoulder. 

Pi stiffens, but quickly shrugs off whatever is bothering him, pulling Jin in tighter. “Twenty fifth! Welcome to a quarter century of age!” Pi says delightedly. “You are sooooo old now,” he giggles a bit, and Jin, despite how crazy this all is and how it doesn’t make any sense and how he doesn’t know if it will end or if it has ever really started, finds himself relaxing into Pi’s strong and warm embrace.

“Soooo old,” Jin says, shaking his head wryly. “To be honest, I haven’t felt this young in years.”

Pi laughs, while Jin tries to wrap his head around the increasingly obvious fact that either this is real, or Ryo had spiked his beer with X last night and he is still riding the wave. 

But Pi’s arms feel real and solid around him, and Jin feels more alive than he has felt in a long time.

“So what’s for lunch,” Jin mumbles, face still buried in Pi’s shoulder.

“Bacon!” Pi says, and Jin grins.

Jin’s heart feels warm. And he doesn’t feel remotely alone. 

 

###

 

Jin wonders, sometimes, if Pi has always been so comfortably hot. Maybe Jin’s been so cold for so long that the presence of another person fills the giant hole in his life that he’s been steadily ignoring. Or maybe Pi himself is larger than life, and Jin just took it for granted the last time around that he’d always be there, filling the dark corners with light, and the empty spaces with sound. 

“Jin!” Pi says excitedly, walking into Jin’s room, shirt half buttoned and wearing one sock.

“Where’s your other sock?” Jin asks, amused.

“On the bed. It’s not IMPORTANT. What is important, you might ask?”

Pi flops onto Jin’s bed while Jin tries to remember what clothes he has. “Where’s my gray and yellow sweatshirt?” Jin mumbles, and Pi looks as him. 

“What sweatshirt is that?” he asks, head tilted sideways. “ANYWAY, tonight Ryo and Yuu and Jun and Kusano are all coming out to celebrate your birthday!”

Jin’s face breaks into a smile. “Everyone is free?!”

Pi grins, and the whole room is brighter. “Yup! Just for you!”

Jin thinks of his life 20 years from now, and vows not to let all this happiness slip away ever again. He’ll do what it takes to make a better life for himself this time around. And he’ll value his best friend—spend as much time as he can with him before he meets Sayaka, before he leaves Jin lonely. 

###

Jin can't remember the last time he went out to a club. He's too old for this shit, but now he isn't, and his head can't seem to wrap itself around the fact that he is only twenty-five. Newly twenty-five.

The evening passes among friends and general debauchery, just the way Jin used to like it. It seems so boring to him now, and Pi notices, sticking close to his side, and they spend the evening making jokes about different club-goers as his friends buy him round after round. Jin doesn't really know if he can remember how to dance, but he grinds with Kusano on the dance floor anyway, with reckless abandon, and thinks some things are like riding a bicycle. A big, drunk, gay bicycle. 

Pi rescues him as he starts to get dizzy, noticing (before Jin does) that Jin is a little too drunk to keep standing. Jin's eyes land on a clock on the wall. 3 AM. 

"But won't Sayaka be worried about you?" Jin forces out of his mouth, the alcohol making his tongue too thick to speak. He knows he's a mess-- Kamenashi and Ryo had made it a competition to see who could get him to take more shots, and Jin didn't know who had won, but Jin himself had certainly lost. 

"Who's Sayaka?" Yamapi asks, as he hoists Jin over to a couch in the VIP section of the club they're in. 

Jin hiccups. "Your wife," he says, and he reaches for his beer but grasps at nothing but air before his brain catches up that he's moved. Jin groans and leans his had back against the couch.

"I don't have a wife, Jin," Pi responds, amused, as Ryo and Kamenashi bicker about baseball teams in the background. Kusano is half-heartedly playing peacemaker and stealthily watching a girl on the other side of the room. Yuu is flirting with two Swedish girls, and he'll probably score with both of them tonight. Pi won't be scoring with anyone, because he's taking care of Jin, who is saying things he shouldn't be saying. "Although I'm amused that in your drunken brain you have an alternate life path for me where I have a wife and also have sex with twins? You kept talking about twins earlier."

"Ew, they're your daughters, you idiot," Jin slurs drunkenly, before he remembers that they aren't. That they don't exist, and that future might never exist. "I'm drunk, so you should ignore what I'm saying, because it's stupid."

"If I ignored everything that you say that is stupid," Pi retorts, flopping down on the couch next to Jin and pulling him over into his shoulder, "I would have to ignore you all the time, and then how would we be best friends?"

"Shut up," Jin mumbles. "And don't get married and move out," he adds, almost as an afterthought.

"Okay Jin," Pi says, and Jin can hear the laughter trickling through his voice. "I'll do my best not to in the immediate future."

"Well, I guess that's all I can ask for, then," Jin mumbles, feeling himself start to pass out. Pi is absentmindedly running his fingers up and down Jin’s forearm, and it feels nice.

"Wake the fuck up, Jin! You have to take another shot, you're only at 18!" he hears Ryo yell, but it's too late, as Jin slips into somnolence. 

###

One time, when Jin was nearing forty and having a crisis about it, he called Yamapi to ask for advice. 

“How are you so happy?” Jin asks.

Yamapi chuckles into the phone. “My girls, honestly. I love the two of them to death,” he says. “Tomoko and Erika are one of the best things that have ever happened to me.”

Jin smiles. 

“But honestly, Jin, everyone has unfulfilled wishes. Things they wanted so bad they can’t sleep at night but for thinking about them.” His voice is intense, and longing.

“Even you?” Jin questions, incredulous, because Yamapi’s got this perfect life, with his two perfect little girls, and he gets to come home from work everyday to three people that love him and a house full of noise.

“Especially me,” Yamapi answers quietly, and Jin doesn’t know what to say. He sees Pi only once or twice a month now, what with their schedules, and Jin being a pathetic recluse who doesn’t really like to bring a dose of depression to normal, well-adjusted people’s lives. He really doesn’t know what Pi is doing every minute of the day anymore. It hurts to think about. 

“I miss you,” he says instead. 

“I miss you too, Jin,” is his answer. 

***

Jin finally starts to believe everything is real, that he really has gone back in time, about three weeks after he starts reliving his life. He wakes up in his old bed, hearing Pi, who always wakes up way earlier than him to go running and do 5 million push ups or some shit, and looks at himself in the morning as he brushes his teeth and doesn’t brush his hair, and he’s young. So young. 

He’s going to make the most of it, in case it’s gone someday, and he wakes up alone and forty-five and miserable tomorrow.

He invites Pi on a trip. “Let’s drive to the beach,” Jin says, because they both have two days off and he knows how much Yamapi loves the ocean. 

Yamapi’s eyes crinkle in delight. “Really? But you always want to spend your days off on the couch. I figured we would just watch movies or something.”

Jin shakes his head emphatically. “We always do what I want to do,” he replies. “So let’s not break the trend. Let’s go to the beach, because I want to go to the beach.”

Yamapi is excited, Jin can see it. “Yes, okay! But I’m driving.”

Jin snorts. “No way! I’m driving. My idea, my rules.”

Glaring at Jin over his glasses, Yamapi raises an eyebrow. “No way are we making a 4 hour drive with you behind the wheel. For one thing, you always get sleepy after a half and hour on the freeway, and do that creepy thing where your eyes half close and you start nodding off and then jerk back awake and pretend you weren’t asleep. And secondly, you have the attention span of a squirrel, and you always look at other cars on the road and talk about the custom paint jobs you would get if you had that car.” Yamapi twirls a piece of hair around his finger in thought. “And thirdly, my car is more awesome than your piece of shit car, and you are not driving my car.”

Jin decides to concede the battle, and an hour later, he’s buckling himself in to the passenger side of Pi’s car, rolling down the window and smoking a cigarette as Pi checks the trunk and climbs into the driver’s seat. “All set?” he quips, excitedly drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

Jin nods and beams. “Let’s go, captain. Beach ahoy!”

The whole drive down, they bicker over the music on the radio, Yamapi complaining about Jin’s terrible taste in rap music, and Jin irritated by Yamapi’s constant singing along with the Carpenters. Jin also points out different cars and the custom paint jobs he would get on them, just to make Pi laugh. 

When they finally arrive at the beach, Pi parks as close as he can to the shore, and jumps out the car, shedding his shirt while running. Jin is left staring bemusedly after him, pushing his sunglasses up on his nose as he watches his friend, still wearing his jeans, run straight into the ocean. The corners of his mouth turn up as Yamapi splashes around in the water like a young boy. Yamapi looks back toward Jin, waving animatedly. Jin waves back, but makes no move to leave his position by the car. Instead, he opens the trunk and scours for a couple of towels and their lunch, which is packed in a cooler. 

Yamapi comes jogging out of the water to help, his hair dripping water down his perfectly toned chest, snagging his shirt as he returns. 

“The water feels great,” Yamapi says, breathless, and Jin chuckles. “I’ll take your word for it,” Jin says, eying Yamapi’s soaked for with amusement. Yamapi’s face fills with mischief. 

“Don’t you dare—“ Jin starts, but then he is caught in a massive hug, and water seeps through his black t-shirt. Yamapi smells of salt and sand already, and Jin finds it comforting as he subconsciously pushes his nose into Yamapi’s wet hair, enjoying the fresh scent. “You smell nice,” Jin says, and Yamapi hugs him tighter for a moment, before releasing him.

“Now you’re all wet,” Yamapi teases, and Jin shoves him. 

“Grab the cooler, and I’ll get the towels. And the sun block. Not all of us are sun proof,” Jin says.

“This was a great idea,” Pi tells Jin as Jin buries him in the sand later. “It’s nice to spend time together like this.”

“It is,” Jin agrees. “Stop moving so much.”

Yamapi wriggles one more time, just to be obnoxious, displacing the sand around his shoulders. “Make me.”

Jin dumps a handful of sand on Pi’s face.

They find a motel to spend the night at, and end up curled up with each other in a double bed, watching reruns of Kadaicha Shounen on TV. Yamapi oscillates between asleep and awake, and drools on Jin’s shoulder. Jin jumps a little when Yamapi slips an arm around his waist, but doesn’t push him away. He feels his own eyes getting heavy, too, and he drifts to sleep in Pi’s tight embrace. 

When he wakes up in the morning, Pi still sleeping, head pillowed on Jin’s chest, mouth parted and lightly snoring, Jin’s stomach feels strange. He looks at Pi, and everything feels perfect, for some reason. 

***

When Jin runs into Crystal at Music Station, he’s suddenly reminded of how beautiful his old friend is. He hasn’t seen her in a long time—she’d moved to the US in 2015 and they’d stayed minimally in touch over social networking sights and via email. But when he sees her again, all he can see is her gorgeous smile and her deep laugh. 

They chat backstage, about music and families and mutual friends, and Jin is mesmerized by her easy grin. When she invites him out for drinks that night, he accepts with ease. Maybe this will be love.

But as they sip on their cocktails, Jin doesn’t feel butterflies in his stomach, or anything beyond a deep affection.

“We should go out with Yuu and Boa sometime soon,” Crystal says, and Jin nods. 

“I totally agree,” Jin concurs, before checking his cell phone again.

“Do you have to go?” Crystal asks, looking amused. “I must be pretty boring if you keep checking your phone. 

“Oh no, it’s nothing like that,” Jin says, embarrassed. “Just making sure Pi doesn’t need anything. He’s a needy bitch sometimes.”

“Oh, you guys are so cute,” Crystal, replies, smiling wide.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you guys are like an old married couple, complaining about each other all the time, but totally in bro-love.”

Jin laughs. “Totally in bro-love, huh? I guess. You remember the interview…we fell in love gradually, over time.”

“Oh bless my fangirl heart,” Crystal says, and orders another drink.

Jin gestures to the bartender to make it two.

Pi texts him and asks him to bring home orange juice, tea bags, and aspirin when he comes. Jin shows Crystal and she laughs. “I told you, he’s a needy bitch!”

Jin wanders tipsy through the convenience store, searching for aspirin. He is no closer to finding love, but he’s so fucking happy.

 

***

Yamashita Tomohisa is unapologetically a sofa hog. Jin knows this, but he’s forgotten how obnoxious it could be to come home and try and watch TV with Pi when he’s sprawled like a hibernating bear across three fourths of the sofa. 

Pi is stubbornly refusing to make room for him, so Jin decides to just lie on top of him. He falls onto Pi with an oomph, and Pi groans and tries to shove Jin onto the floor. “You’re so fat,” Pi whines, and Jin laughs. 

“Then scoot the fuck over, idiot,” Jin scolds, and deadens his body to make himself feel heavier. Pi grunts, his muscles straining to push Jin off of him, but he can’t get leverage from his position on the bottom. 

Finally, he gives up, and they watch the news with Jin draped over Yamapi, head tucked into the curve between Yamapi’s neck and shoulder.

Jin is surprised by how comfortable it is. He doesn’t remember things like this, but he thinks these are the things he should remember the most.

***  
Jin will never admit it when you ask, but the first night after Pi moved out of the apartment they shared, Jin cried for two hours and talked to his mom on the phone for two more hours after that. Then he ate a tub of ice cream and watched the Notebook, because he felt like he’d just been dumped. Jin knows it’s not really normal behavior for a 28-year-old man who is losing his roommate, but he can’t really help himself. 

***

Jin had forgotten this moment, and if was honest with himself, he knows he has forced himself to forget it. Johnny is looking at him and telling him he’s going to have to choose, eventually. Choose between doing what Johnny wants and finding a new agency. Jin knows no one will take him if Johnny has thrown him away, so it’s not really a choice. 

In his previous timeline, as he thought of it now, he had wallowed in silence about what was going on with Johnny and his solo stuff, and what it might mean for the group. 

This time, Jin’s not going to let his pride or his cowardice fuck this up. He’s going to be honest from the get-go about everything that’s happening, with all of them. They’re fellow soldiers in this war, and while they’re not all best friends, they’re definitely friends, people who hang out with each other outside of work because they like each other. They’re not like Pi and Ryo and Yuu and Kusano, but they’re important too, and Jin wants to make as much right as he can, now that he’s been given a 20-year advantage in the wisdom department. (If Jin is honest about this, he knows that makes him about equal with present-day Kamenashi, who has always been ahead of him in things like common sense and not being a self-absorbed dick.)

He first broaches it over lunch with Koki and Nakamaru, while they blow over their hot ramen. “Johnny wants to remove me from KAT-TUN,” he blurts out, and Nakamaru’s chopsticks halt in mid-air. “What?”

Jin looks up from his ramen and cringes. “Johnny wants to take me out of KAT-TUN.”

Koki is frowning. “Why?”

Jin sighs. “He thinks I’m the wrong image and that I’m too polarizing. He wants me to do solo stuff instead.”

“Well, what did you say?” Nakamaru asks, after a few beats of silence. 

“I said no,” Jin replies. “But it’s not going to be my choice, you know that. He agreed for now, but it’s not over. Nothing is over until Johnny gets whatever he wants.”

Koki’s eyes narrow. “Of course, you don’t want to go solo at all,” he says sarcastically.

Jin looks at him straightforwardly. “I would love to do solo work, honestly. But I don’t see why I can’t do it like Yamapi and NewS, or like Kamenashi.”

Koki nods, and Nakamaru makes a thoughtful hum. “Is this why you missed rehearsal yesterday? Manager said you had a good reason.”

“Yeah, I was getting the ‘you’re a shame to the human race and a sad excuse for a pop star’ speech from Johnny. Who also told me it was a good thing I was so pretty and sang so well, because I’m boring and unapproachable as a person.”

“Well that’s true,” Koki replies, and slurps noodles into his mouth while Jin feigns a punch at his head. “We should talk about this as a group.”

“I’m glad you told us, Jin,” Nakamaru says, lazily playing with a fishcake. “It would have sucked to find out about it from the news one morning or something. Like with the hiatus.”

Jin swallows. “Yeah, I originally was going to keep quiet about it until it was final, but then I realized I might not have the chance to tell you with the pace things move around here. And better now than out of nowhere in a few months, right?”

Koki grins. “When did you get so smart, Bakanishi?”

Jin grins back. “I’m cheating.”

They look at him questioningly, but Jin remains enigmatic. 

***

Once, and only once, Pi shows up at Jin’s door unannounced. They sat side by side on the balcony, a beer in hand, and they didn’t talk. 

“Today, I didn’t want to wake up,” Pi said, staring out over the Tokyo skyline. “I didn’t want to get out of bed, go and shoot a drama, and then go to a magazine shoot, and do an interview where I give stupid answers that don’t mean anything. I didn’t want any of it.”

Pi’s voice sounds empty and hollow. “I’m 44 years old, Jin, and for a minute, before I remembered the girls, I didn’t want to wake up.”

He takes a sip of his beer. Jin doesn’t have anything to say. “It was better, when I could come home to you, and you understood.”

Jin clears his throat. “It was nice, living together.”

Yamapi takes another sip of his beer. 

***

Jin doesn’t know how one goes about finding someone to fall in love with. The first time around, he went to a lot of clubs, had a lot of one-night stands, and ended up completely alone. 

Sometimes he thinks about asking Ryo, but then he imagines Ryo’s face when he does (“Are you kidding me? No one will ever love you, because you are fat, lazy and stupid, and also because you look like a hobo and wear plaid skirts.”) and realizes that his friends aren’t really the sort you ask for love advice. 

“Hey, Pi?” Jin asks, as they sit on the couch watching ‘America’s Next Top Model,’ eating cheddar popcorn and drinking Fanta. 

“Yeah?” Yamapi replies, eyes glued to the screen.

“How do people fall in love?” Jin asks. “How do you even find people to fall in love with?”

Pi’s hand pauses with a handful of popcorn right before his mouth. His eyes slide away from the TV, and land on Jin. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…neverrrrr mind,” Jin says, flustered. “I’m being stupid. Let’s just watch the show.”

Pi is silent, and Jin feels embarrassed and silly for even bringing it up. He’s forty-five years old, or twenty-five, depending on how you look at it, and he feels like a middle school kid learning about the birds and the bees.

“Well,” Pi says, slowly, as if he’s carefully weighing each and every word. “Sometimes it happens when you least expect it. Like, you’re sitting at home, and suddenly, it hits you. You’re in love. Usually it’s a friend. Or someone you’ve been dating. Someone you spend a lot of time with.”

“But what does it feel like?” Jin asks, biting his lip anxiously. 

Pi swallows, and his eyes turn back to the TV. “Love?”

“Yeah,” Jin says, exhaling. “I’ve never…I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking for. I write love songs, but it’s all just cliché shit I’ve never felt.”

Pi sighs, softly, and his eyes don’t move away from the television. “Love feels…it feels amazing and terrible, at the same time. Like you’re full enough to burst, but at the same time, echoingly empty. You feel like you’ll never care this much about anyone else, ever again, and that they’ll never possibly be able to feel as much for you. Being with them is wonderful, but it hurts so much—“ Pi stops, and shoves a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “Or maybe that’s just unrequited love.”

Jin is staring with wide eyes. “Pi, is that how you felt about Keiko?” Jin asks, and his stomach churns at the thought inexplicably. 

Pi snorts. “I didn’t love her. I liked her a lot, but not in the way where I always wanted to be close to her, always wanted to see her. I honestly…If we went a month without seeing each other, it was no big deal. Probably why we broke up.”

Jin frowns. “Oh, then how…?”

Yamapi is really quiet, and then he quickly inhales. “I’ve been in love before, with someone I couldn’t tell. It…sucks.”

Jin scoots closer to Pi on the couch and lays his head on his shoulder. “How could anyone not love you?” Jin whispers, and Pi stiffens. 

“You’d be surprised,” he says, and shoves popcorn in Jin’s mouth. Jin sputters, and the solemn mood is broken. Jin collapses onto Yamapi’s lap and stares up at his best friend. 

“Thanks,” he says, and Pi smiles down at him. But Jin can see…that something in Yamapi’s eyes, that sad, whimsical look that sometimes lingered around the edges of his grin before. After. Later. 

Jin doesn’t know what it means, but thinks he should. It niggles in the back of his mind.

***

“How’s the new apartment?” Jin asks. 

Yamapi had moved out 2 weeks after his 27th birthday, for reasons Jin still didn’t understand. 

“It’s quiet and clean,” Yamapi says jokingly, and Jin smiles despite his strange urge to cry. 

“Was I really that bad?” Jin whispers over the phone, and when Yamapi doesn’t answer Jin feels the answer must be yes.

“It wasn’t your fault, Jin,” Yamapi says instead. “The reasons I needed to move out are kind of complicated.”

“I really want to get it,” Jin says. “It feels like I drove you away.”

“It’s not you, it’s me,” Pi replies.

Jin laughs bitterly. “Why does it feel like you’re breaking up with me?”

Silence is Jin’s answer. 

“Sorry I’m being a girl,” Jin says into the silence, and Pi laughs dryly. Jin’s stomach is in knots. “When’s the housewarming? How’s Pin?”

“Can’t wait to get drunk in a new apartment?” Pi jokes. “My furniture here is nice, lady-killing furniture, so you’d better not drool on any of it, Bakanishi. Pin is fine. He’s a good dog.” 

The jokes are the same, but the distance between them is painful. 

Jin never quite forgives Pi for leaving with no explanation, and he thinks Pi knows it.

***

Living with Pi again is as easy as breathing. Sometimes Jin doesn’t think he needs to find love it all, when everything he needs to be happy is right here in his best friend and their small two-bedroom apartment, where they practically live on top of each other. 

His best friend in the world is in the kitchen, singing tunelessly at the top of his lungs, smoking and cooking bacon shirtless, while Jin writes songs with Josh on AIM in his bedroom. 

The lyrics are silly and fun, something Jin will really enjoy performing even if it’s a bit crude. He’ll translate the lyrics for Pi later, and they’ll laugh about the bizarre “do her from behind” joke Josh insists is good for laughs. 

“Jin, there’s bacon!” Pi yells from the kitchen, and Jin quickly logs off AIM and follows the delicious smell of cooked pig. 

Pi looks adorable, Jin thinks, his bangs pulled up in a twist tie on top of his head, his bottom lip caught between his teeth in concentration. “Smells amazing,” Jin says, resting his chin on Yamapi’s shoulder. Yamapi jumps, and Jin smiles. 

Old Jin, as he calls the aged version of himself, was bad at showing appreciation. Jin vows that Pi will know every single time he appreciates him, and maybe whatever made Pi leave won’t happen again. “Thank you,” Jin whispers, and Pi shivers.

“Your welcome,” he whispers, and his voice is hoarse and strange. 

“Are you catching a cold?” Jin asks worriedly, putting a hand up to check Pi’s temperature. The back of his hand rests against the cool skin of Pi’s temple, and Pi is staring at him wide eyed. “Take care of yourself, you’ve got recording tomorrow, right?”

Pi nods, dumbly. He turns back to the pan, eyes still wide and tumultuous. “Set the table,” he says, voice trembling slightly, and Jin does, while Pi quickly fries four eggs in the bacon grease. 

As Jin takes a delicious bite of bacon, he looks over at his best friend. “You’re my one in a million, Pi,” and he giggles. 

Pi’s fork freezes on the way to his mouth. “How do you know about that song?”

Jin freezes too. He’s about a year to early to make that joke, though he continues to make it for years into the future. “Um…you sing in your sleep,” Jin replies quickly. It’s true, so Jin doesn’t feel bad about implying that that’s where he heard the song, and not from his autographed Supergood Superbad CD that he listens to sometimes just because it’s the last gift Pi ever gave him as a roommate. 

Pi relaxes. “Do I really?” 

Jin giggles like a little girl. “Yesterday, when you fell asleep on the couch you were singing ‘Phantom of the Opera’,” Jin says, and Yamapi flushes. 

“Shut up,” he mumbles, shoving a bite of egg into his mouth. But he’s smiling.

Jin likes it when Pi falls asleep on him while they watch TV. He can run his hands contentedly through Pi’s hair while he coos in his sleep, and Jin feels so full and contented in those moments that he almost forgets how bleak his future is. 

“Ryo-chan wants to go out tonight, are you in?” Pi says, taking a swig of orange juice.

“When am I not?” Jin replies.

Being twenty-five again is good.

And going out is a chance to meet new people. Jin suddenly remembers that he’s come back to find love. It’s easy to forget that he’s looking for someone else when Pi is smiling at him like this, his crooked teeth bared in a way they never are in magazines.

***

Jin knows he’s drunk. He can feel the music blaring loudly around him, thumping in his blood, and he’s moving to the beat. His eyes won’t focus on anything, the world a delicious blur that makes him both heady and nauseous. 

“Come back to the table, Jin,” he hears Yamapi say, and he’s struck with a bit of déjà-vu. Yamapi’s hand is warm on his waist, and his breath blows softly into Jin’s ear. 

Jin feels hot, so hot, and he wants Yamapi to be consumed with him in the blazing heat of the dance floor. “Dance with me,” Jin whispers, and laces his fingers with Yamapi’s, dragging him close until they are pressed together, hips grinding to the beat. Jin’s eyes focus for a brief minute on Yamapi’s face, and his skin is flushed, eyes wide and disbelieving as he looks at Jin. 

“Jin, what are you doing?” Yamapi squeaks, and Jin’s too drunk to care. He just knows that he wants to feel more of Yamapi’s toned body pressed against him as the song changes to a faster one. 

“Dance with me!” Jin whines, and presses his hips into Pi’s. Pi’s face is so close to his, and Jin can feel Yamapi’s heavy exhalations on his cheekbones and on his eyelids. He can feel Pi’s belt buckle digging into his hipbone, as the sway to the music. 

Jin closes his eyes for a moment, enjoying the smell of fresh ginger, Pi’s smell, and sweat and tobacco all mixing together in an intoxicating blend around him. His head feels both heavy and light, and he feels detached from his body. 

Pi’s hands finally slide to his hip, grasping and pulling him in even tighter, and Jin uses Pi’s strong frame to anchor himself to earth. “You always smell like ginger,” Jin manages, and Yamapi rests his forehead against Jin as the beat slows to something sexy and smooth. Jin opens his eyes, and Yamapi fills his gaze.

“Jin,” Yamapi whispers, and Jin hits blackout. The last thing he remembers is Yamapi staring at him, with hooded eyes, flushed and anxious and…

When Jin wakes up in the morning, alone in his bed, in his briefs, his jeans and button up folded next to his bed, he wonders, a little, what happened. 

He finds Pi asleep on the couch, cell phone in hand. I can’t do this is typed in an open SMS to Ryo-chan. Jin slides the phone out of Pi’s hand, and covers him with a throw blanket. 

He presses a gentle kiss to his forehead, and remembers how he’d looked last night at the club.

Jin is confused.

***

At Tomoko and Erika’s 5th birthday, Jin goes early to help decorate. The girls screech in joy. “Uncle Jin!” they yell delightedly. Jin holds his arms out and the girls fall into them. 

“How are my two princesses today?” Jin greets them, and they giggle. Sayaka peeks her head out from the kitchen. 

“Hey Jin,” she says. “Can you give me a hand?” Yamapi is hanging balloons just fine on his own, so Jin retreats to the kitchen, his two fangirls resuming their screaming run around the house. Sayaka is frosting the cake. “Pass me the plate of fruit,” she says, and Jin brings it over. Together they start pushing the fruits neatly into the sugary frosting. “I’m glad you’re here,” Sayaka says, suddenly.

“Of course I’d come to the twins birthday,” Jin replies, almost indignant.

Sayaka looks at him and smiles. She really is beautiful, the kind of woman who is a good match for his equally beautiful friend, who still shines despite his thinning hair and increasing middle. “It’s just…he’s happiest when you’re here,” she says, biting her lip. “He’s only the man I feel in love with when you’re here.”

Jin looks at her, mouth dry. He doesn’t know what to say.

Sayaka laughs sadly to herself. “Maybe he should have married you instead of me,” she says then, and Jin swallows. 

“Don’t be silly. Pi loves you and the girls so much. He wouldn’t trade you for anything.”

“I don’t know about that,” Sayaka replies mysteriously, pushing a strawberry too deep into the icing. She looks up at Jin again. “Have you ever known something was true with all your heart, but ignored it because it wasn’t what you wanted to be the truth?”

Jin thinks about his lonely apartment, and his lonely life, with friends and family too busy pursuing their own happiness to be too worried that he hasn’t found his. “Yeah,” he says roughly. “I think I have.”

Sayaka holds Jin’s gaze. “My marriage is kind of like that.”

Tomoko and Erika come running into the room, and the solemn mood is broken. But the conversation plays over and over in Jin’s mind that night as he tries to sleep.

***

Jin wonders what Yamapi’s two wishes were.

***

Sometimes Jin has these terrifying nightmares, where he wakes up and he's 45 again, and Pi is married and only talks to him once a month. He sits up in bed and runs his hands feverishly over his body, feeling for the scar on his face and the blemished tattooed skin on his hipbone, and wonders if he can really change his fate. He is sweaty and aching, both inside and out. 

Tonight is one of those nights. Jin creeps out of his room and toward the kitchen, planning on a cup of green tea with a shot of whiskey in it to put him back to sleep. But when he gets to the kitchen, Pi is sitting there at the counter with a bottle of Patrón, drinking straight out of the bottle and looking bleakly at the wall. 

"Couldn't sleep?" Jin whispers questioningly, and Pi's head swivels to look at Jin, his eyelash dark against his pale and waxen face. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay," Pi slurs, and Jin frowns, and reaches to take the bottle from Pi's tight grip. "You're not my mother, so back off," he growls, pulling the bottle tighter into his body.

"Bad day?" Jin sits on the stool next to Yamapi, his hand abandoning its quest for Pi's tequila. 

"Bad life," Pi mumbles, and Jin frowns. 

"What do you mean?" 

"I'm so...unhappy," Yamapi says, and Jin gazes at his friend, hunched over the counter, and can see the misery in every line of his body, obvious even to Jin's negligent eyes. Jin searches his mind for this conversation (has he had it before?) but comes up empty. Jin had been too self absorbed the last time around to notice, too busy partying to pay attention. 

But this time, he asks. "Why?"

"Everything," Pi says, exhaling. "Just...everything. I've got all this stuff I don't need, and none of the things I want and I'm just so miserable. I wake up in the morning and I feel empty." Jin knows that feeling. He'd felt it for 10 years, struggling to find a reason beyond music and sheer stubbornness to get out of bed. 

But Jin was alone. Yamapi, Jin vows, will never be alone like that, not if Jin has anything to say about it. "You have me," Jin says, and Yamapi looks at him solemnly. "You'll always have me." It’s one thing Jin can confidently promise, because he’s realized all over again, the past few months, how much more vibrant his world is with Pi threading through every part of it. 

Yamapi's hand fumbles for his wrist. He grabs a hold of Jin's arm tightly, too tightly really, and Jin hisses as the nails dig into his skin. "Will I?" Pi asks, and his voice is asking more than the simple question is phrased to be. Jin can hear it, but he doesn't know what it means. Pi is looking at him, searching him for something Jin doesn't know how to deliver or show him. "Will you really stay with me?" Pi stares at the counter intensely, before heaving himself up and stumbling towards his bedroom. 

Jin stands up quickly too, sliding under Pi's arm and supporting him. "Yes," Jin says firmly, as he lays Pi on his bed. Pi immediately curls into a ball, and Jin tugs the comforter out from under him, pulling it over him gently. Pi is asleep, already, but Jin can't resist running his hands through Yamapi's full head of hair. "You've always been important to me, Pi," he whispers to the slumbering man, before he leaves, closes the door and returns to the kitchen. He screws the top onto the Patrón, and puts water into the kettle for tea.

His wrist stings, and he has circular cuts running down the center of the inside, to the left of the vein, where Pi's nails had dug in.

The next morning, on his way out for a run, Yamapi notices the gauze around Jin's wrist and looks at him like a deer in the headlights. Jin smiles at him gently, and brushes a hand over his shoulder. "I did this?" Pi asks, and Jin shrugs. 

"It's no big deal, Pi," he says, but Yamapi's eyes are riveted on the gauze. "Seriously, no big deal."

"It is to me," he says in response, before he pulls on his sneakers and goes.

***

It happens this time just like it happened the first time, and Jin still feels just as blindsided. He and Ryo are playing on the Playstation, and Yamapi is drinking an Asahi on the sofa behind them, laughing as they physically shove each other to throw off aim. Jin wins, shooting Ryo’s character kind of epically in the face, and Jin throws his head back in victorious laughter. He turns to Pi, wanting to share his joy, but Pi is just staring at him, his eyes tight and neck flushed. He’s just looking at him in a way that makes Jin’s heart want to break out from his ribcage and run away.

“I’ve been thinking about getting my own place,” Pi says suddenly.

Jin’s jaw drops. He’d been working so hard to value Pi, to value their friendship. He didn’t think it would happen like this again. It’s a different place, and a different time (even earlier than before) but it’s the same words, and they hurt just as much now as they did the last time around. 

“Did I do something wrong?” Jin asks, and Yamapi winces. 

“No, I just should…try living alone.” Yamapi says, and Jin snorts.

“It’s not fun,” Jin says in response, looking down at the PS controller in his hands. Ryo is conspicuously silent, and Jin looks at him. His eyes are narrowed as he looks at Pi, and Jin thinks he might want to put a hand on Pi’s shoulder, but isn’t doing so because Jin is there.

“When have you ever lived alone?” Yamapi retorts, and Jin wants to say for way too long but he can’t, because one of his made up rules is that his time-jump has to remain a complete secret. 

“Why do you want to leave me?” Jin says instead, and then frowns at the way it sounds. Yamapi is his best friend, not his lover, and he has no right to cling onto him like he is, even if he wants nothing more than to wrap his hand around Pi’s ankle right now and tell him there’s no way in hell he’s moving out. His eyes hold onto Pi’s though, demanding an answer for two lifetimes worth of confusion.

“We’re out of beer,” Ryo interrupts, and Yamapi breaks the gaze. 

“I’m on it,” Pi says, and heads for the door, grabbing his wallet off the table by the foyer where he left it. “See you in ten.”

Jin’s still watching the place where Pi had been standing only moments before.

“I think there are two beers still left in the fridge,” Ryo comments, and Jin follows the unspoken command and accompanies Ryo to the kitchen. He stands by the counter, though, and his hands grab onto the edge to steady himself. “I tried so hard to be a better friend,” Jin chokes out, his heart feeling painfully constricted. 

Ryo pauses and sits at one of the stools in front of the kitchen counter, opposite Jin. “Wait, what?”

“I don’t want him to leave,” Jin says. “Because it’s so lonely without him. I don’t understand why he wants to go.”

“You’re such a fucking idiot,” Ryo hisses at Jin.

“What?” Jin says, because he doesn’t understand why everything is falling apart or why any of this is happening.

“He’s in love with you, dickface. I don’t know why-- god knows we’ve all tried to help him get over it.” Ryo says, staring at Jin hard, pinning him in place with his stare.

Jin’s mind is reeling as everything suddenly sharpens, like there was one missing piece of a puzzle and he didn’t know what the whole picture was until the last piece was fitted into place. “What?” he says again, but he knows it’s true, just like he knows the sun is warm and the sky is blue. 

“I don’t know what games you’re playing—“ Suddenly Ryo stops, and looks at Jin. “You really didn’t know?” He seems incredulous.

“No!” Jin squeaks, and Ryo deflates, all the wind knocked out of his sails.

“Oh.” He rests his head on his folded arms, leaning onto the counter. “Well now you do.”

Jin’s hands grip the opposite end of the counter tightly, his mind replaying scene after scene, wincing as he realizes how much pain he must have caused Yamapi with his obliviousness. “Fuck, I’m such an asshole,” Jin says, and he feels like he might need to cry.

“Please do not cry,” Ryo groans anxiously. “I am not a grown man with grown man friends so I can watch people cry. Seriously, cut that shit out.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Jin asks, lost. He feels like the ground has been ripped from under him, and he’s standing on nothing but air, with nothing below him but a hard earth he might be destined to crash into. “What am I supposed to do?”

He sees Pi’s forty-four year old face in his mind’s eye, that sad look. He hears his voice, tweedy and thin over the telephone. Things they wanted so bad they can’t sleep at night but for thinking about them.

He sees twenty-four year old Pi stiffening in his arms, face flushed with repressed desire (now he knows what it is) and the pain of unrequited love. He sees every time he brushed his friend aside on accident. Who wouldn’t love you?

It hurts, it hurts, and he doesn’t know where to go from here.

“What do I do?” he whispers again.

Ryo looks at him. “Well, how do you feel?”

Jin looks at him blankly.

Ryo sighs. “About Pi. How do you feel about Pi?”

Jin’s heart stops beating. “I…don’t know.”

Ryo picks himself up and goes to the fridge. “Well, you need to figure that out first.” He grabs a beer and goes back to his seat. Popping the lid with a bottle opener, he leans forward on his elbow, and takes a swig before looking straight at Jin. “Once you figure that out, then you can start thinking about what to do.”

“I’m back,” Yamapi calls from the foyer, and Jin swallows.

“Right,” he says, and examines his hands, still thinking about the tragic look in Yamapi’s eyes when he said goodbye to Jin at Jin’s forty-fifth birthday party. 

He thinks about two lifetimes of letting Pi down, of not being able to see what was right in front of his eyes.

“Jin, are you okay?” Pi asks, nudging Jin with a shoulder when he comes into the kitchen. “You look like someone killed our dog and ate it in front of you.”

“I’m fine,” Jin chokes out. Ryo snorts.

“Jin was just telling me about some sappy ass American romance movie and he started crying like a bitch,” Ryo sasses, and Jin feels Pi push a cold beer into his hand. “I’m off to the restroom, back in 3,” Ryo says, and struts out of the kitchen.

Pi lays a strong hand on Jin’s back, right between his shoulder blades. “Sorry about before. Didn’t mean to bring it up out of nowhere,” he murmurs softly, and Jin looks at him directly.

“I’m sorry too,” Jin says, and his eyes are full of everything he wants to say, and some stuff he hasn’t figured out yet, too. Yamapi gulps, and licks his lips. 

“Okay,” he says, and Jin leans his head on Yamapi’s shoulder. 

“You’re my best friend,” Jin says. “The most important person in the world to me.”

Yamapi swallows, hard. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jin says. “You always have been.” And he realizes it’s true. 

“I’m still going to move.” 

“Okay,” Jin says, and he wonders f fate is immutable. 

***

There’s a weird feeling of history repeating itself when Jin starts prepping for the You and Jin concert, in between rehearsals with KAT-TUN. When Old Jin thinks back on this concert, he had always thought of some things he would do differently to make the concert stronger, better. He has his chance now, but he’s hesitant to change things too much, for some reason.

He’s straddling the line between memory and reality, and if they deviate too much Jin might find himself hopelessly confused. 

But Jin’s already lived most of his life confused, and so he decides to follow his heart. 

It’s time to write Eternal. This time, as he writes the words down from memory into a document, he thinks of Pi the whole time, about how no matter how old he is or what he’s doing, there exists a person with whom his bonds will never break. 

And thank you for today.

***

Knowing that Pi is in love with him is a strange feeling. He’s watching Pi take boxes out to the moving truck he’s rented for the day, and he knows he should say something to stop everything from happening like before, to stop fate from chugging forward onto tracks that don’t change direction. 

Pi keeps looking around the apartment like his heart is breaking, and Jin’s heart is breaking too. He thinks he knows what that means, but he’s afraid to realize he is that stupid, that he spent all this time looking for love and it’s been in front of his face for thirty years and he’s ignored it. That he might have ruined his life and Yamapi’s with his own obliviousness.

Jin’s terrified, most of all, that he doesn’t deserve Yamapi’s love, after all these years and all this time. That he doesn’t deserve the devotion that he clearly inspired in Yamapi, even after 2 children and a wedding to a woman he cares about very much. 

And Jin feels like he could be stealing that future from Yamapi with his own foreknowledge. Stealing those little girls and that white picket fence and everything Yamapi had said he wanted when they were still 16 and dreaming of a distant future.

He’s worried that he doesn’t deserve anything that Yamapi is offering him, and he’s worried that that fact won’t stop him from reaching out and taking it anyway.

And he can’t stop himself. “Pi, don’t go,” he whispers, and Yamapi looks up from where he is sealing a box closed with packing tape.

“You love me, right?” Jin says, and Pi drops the tape. The clack of the plastic dispenser on the wooden floor echoes through an apartment that already feels too empty. 

“Jin?” Pi questions, looking at Jin like Jin is a ghost.

“You love me, don’t you? So don’t leave.” Jin says, and Yamapi’s face crumbles.

“You knew?” He whispers, and Jin can barely hear the strangled words.

“No, not really,” Jin replies. “Ryo-chan told me.”

Pi’s knuckles are white, gripping the edge of the box. “Oh.”

“So why…why won’t you stay?”

“It hurts, to live with you. To see you every day, and not be able to touch. To hear you singing in the bathroom and not be able to walk in and wrap my arms around you and kiss you. To want you so much it physically causes me pain, and not be able to do anything about it. And I can’t get over you while I’m living here.”

Jin is staring at Yamapi now, his brain working too slow to keep up.

“Are you disgusted? Are you angry?” Pi asks into the silence, as he hefts the box. “This is the last one. I’ll see you later.”

“Pi, wait!” Jin yells, but Yamapi ignores him, rapidly descending the stairs, and Jin goes to the window, and watches him load the last box into the truck. 

Jin sits down in the middle of the floor, looking at the two more boxes that Pi had planned on taking today. Not the last box at all.

His heart is hammering against his ribs, and his palms are sweating. 

For twenty minutes, he sits there, staring blankly at the wall, processing his thoughts.

Jin has been looking for love.

Jin doesn’t want to be alone again.

Jin is his happiest when he is with Yamapi.

Yamapi loves him.

These are the facts.

Jin knows now, why he was given this second chance. He knows, and he won’t let go.

***

Jin sends Pi a text at midnight. Meet at the park near Minatomachi station? He says, and waits for an answer.

When?

Now. Jin’s hands fumble on the keys, and he has to type the word three times before the correct kanji slips into place. 

Okay.

Jin waits for 25 minutes. It’s cold, and he’s anxious. And then Pi appears, hands shoved into his coat pockets, eyes tired and ringed. He looks like he’s been sitting in misery for the past 12 hours since he’d left their old apartment. 

“Pi…” Jin whispers, and his voice catches in his throat. He knows what he has to say now, he understands why he’s going through this: why he’s doing everything over, and what he wants, needs, more than anything else in the world. He knows all of that and yet he can’t push it out, the words lingering in his diaphragm and sticking there. “Pi…I…”

“What do you want from me, Jin? This…this hurts,” Yamapi says in response, looking down at the cement in front of them. “You called me here, in the middle of the night, and now you don’t have anything to say?” Jin watches him, and Yamapi looks lost, his eyes a little wild and confused. The wind is blowing heavy, and Jin shudders. Yamapi starts to draw nearer, as if to wrap him in a one armed hug, but stops. “What do you want from me?” His voice is pleading.

A red leaf blows, and sticks in Yamapi’s hair. As Jin looks at him, images of Yamapi at age 16, at age 32, at age 44, and now all layer on top of each other in front of his eyes, and Jin’s heart beats just as fast for all of them. Jin thinks an image of Yamapi at age 75 would do the same, because the man in front of him is his everything, and is just as beautiful to him on the inside as he is on the outside. Jin knows that in 20 years, Yamapi will be balding and might grow a terrible mustache, and he doesn’t care because he’ll want to kiss that mustache over and over again, because Yamapi’s laugh will stay the same no matter how many years pass. And the words come, like a gusher, straight from his heart.

“I want forever,” Jin finally says, and Yamapi looks up quickly to meet his eyes. 

“What?”

Jin is sure. “I want forever. I want yesterday, and tomorrow, and next month, and next year. I want twenty years from now.” Jin laughs. “I want forty years from now. I want two hours from now, and four hours ago. I want to open my eyes and roll over in bed and see you when I’m eighty. I want you, just you, for the rest of my life.”

Pi’s mouth is parted in shock, his eyes wide and luminous in the streetlight. Jin thinks they might be wet, but he doesn’t have the chance to contemplate it, because Yamapi is kissing him. Jin responds immediately, his hands clutching at the lapels of Pi’s woolen trench, pulling him closer as he seals their mouths closed. Pi’s hands come up to cradle his jaw, a little too tight, but Jin doesn’t mind because he’s desperate to be closer, to feel more. Pi’s tongue lightly brushes against Jin’s lower lip, and Jin eagerly replies to the unspoken request for entrance by opening his mouth. Yamapi’s tongue immediately invades, ghosting against the sides of Jin’s mouth before tangling with Jin’s tongue.

Pi tastes like dumplings and Fanta and some taste that’s distinctly Yamapi, and Jin can’t get enough of it. Then Yamapi moans, and Jin can get enough of that, either. He wants to hear that sound over and over and over, and it’s taken thirty-two years but Jin has finally come home. 

They both realize they’re outside, in public, at the same time. Jin pulls away from be with a small sigh, his lips swollen and tingling and aching to return home. “Pi…” he says, and he opens his eyes, and Pi is smiling at him, big and goofy and free. His lips are red and swollen too, and his eyes are sparkling.

“You could have just said ‘I love you’ like a normal person,” Yamapi chides, laughing. “You didn’t have to get all creepy gothic romance novel on me.” He puts his hands over Jin’s, which are still tightly gripping the lapels of his winter coat. “I mean, who knows what I’ll look like when I’m forty!”

Jin laughs too, and lightly presses his lips against Pi’s quickly, once, twice, three times. “Oh,” Jin says, and his smile is knowing. “I might have a vague idea.”

***

Jin finds himself pressed aggressively against the front door of his apartment, trapped by the hard planes of Yamapi’s chest as Yamapi devours his lips. Jin can’t stop the soft moans that sneak out of his throat as Yamapi’s tongue swirls around his own. Jin can’t breathe, but it’s okay, because this is better than breathing.

Jin doesn’t know why he’s surprised that kissing Yamapi makes him feel like he’s flying, when everything he does with Yamapi feels better than anything else the world can offer. 

Yamapi has his hands inside Jin’s t-shirt, lying broad across his ribs, and Jin feels goose bumps prickle where Yamapi’s cool palms touch bare skin. Jin’s coat is on the floor between them, having been shoved off as soon as they walked in the door. And then Yamapi’s hands are wandering, touching every bit of skin he can reach. Jin feels light-heated with sensation. 

“Take it off,” Yamapi growls, and he’s tugging on Jin’s shirt, and Jin lifts his arms. Yamapi drags the shirt upward with a swift tug, and it gets caught on Jin’s ear. Jin laughs, and pulls it off himself, before looking at Yamapi. 

“You’re still wearing your coat,” Jin says, and Yamapi hastily takes it off, dropping it carelessly to the floor.

“Doesn’t matter,” he breathes onto Jin’s lips. “Just want to touch you,” he growls, and captures Jin’s lips again in a searing, intense kiss that leaves Jin feeling as if he might melt into a puddle on the floor. 

“There’s no hurry,” Jin says, when he gets some of his breath back. Pi is panting softly, his lips pressing soft kisses to Jin’s neck and behind his ear. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’ve waited so long,” Pi replies, looking Jin in the eyes. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited.”

Jin gulps at the emotion in Pi’s eyes. He looks feverish, and all Jin can do is drag him in for another kiss, open mouthed and gentle. “I’m not going anywhere,” he repeats.

Yamapi smiles against Jin’s lips. “Oh yes you are,” he retorts, and lifts Jin by grabbing his ass. Jin wraps his legs around Pi’s waist on reflex, to steady himself. “You’re going into your bedroom.”

Jin laughs. “I dunno, I don’t really have sex on the first date,” he teases.

Yamapi snorts. “You have sex before the first date.”

“If you’re trying to seduce me, you’re doing it wro—“ Yamapi cuts him off by dropping him onto the bed and straddling him, before closing the distance between them again, sucking Jin’s lower lip into his mouth and biting softly. “Shut up, Bakanishi.”

Jin grunts in response, and tugs meaningfully at Pi’s tank shirt. “Off,” he says, and Pi disinterestedly pulls it off before leaning back down. Jin moans at the feeling of his bare chest flush against Yamapi’s and suddenly he feels Yamapi’s cock through their jeans, hard and hot against his thigh. 

Suddenly he’s nervous. “I’ve never, um…do you know what you’re doing?” Jin says, looking up at Pi through his eyelashes. Pi gulps, and nods. 

“I have a general idea,” he replies, toying with the button of Jin’s jeans. He undoes it, then unzips them, and Jin lifts his hips. Yamapi pulls off his jeans and boxers in one fell swoop, and Jin feels exposed. Yamapi’s eyes rake over his whole body, and Jin flushes under the attention. “You’re so sexy,” Pi says, his tone a little awed. Jin’s heartbeat speeds up, and his cock throbs. 

“I thought you were going to say I’m fat,” Jin whispers, and Yamapi presses a single kiss to Jin’s sternum. 

“You’re perfect,” Pi says.

“You’d better top,” Jin blurts out before he can think about it too hard and get scared, and Pi looks at him incredulously. “I don’t know what I’m doing and I’d just make a mess of it, and I trust you.”

Pi’s eyes soften, and he looks at Jin with a strange sort of reverence that makes Jin’s whole body tingle with anticipation. Pi kisses and licks and nibbles his way down Jin’s body, and when his mouth surrounds Jin’s erection, Jin wonders if he’s ever felt anything this amazing. It’s not the first blowjob Jin’s ever gotten, but the fact that it’s Pi doing this for him, licking up his shaft and sucking wetly on the head, makes Jin feel like he’ll explode with the glowing feeling that is singing through his veins. 

Reaching over Jin, and into the bedside table drawer, Yamapi pulls out a small bottle of lube. Jin closes his eyes, and forces himself to relax as Yamapi teases his entrance with a slicked finger, prodding lightly at the tight ring of muscle. 

Yamapi’s other hand rests lightly on his hipbone, softly stroking his skin in a reassuring manner. “Relax,” he says, and Jin opens his eyes to see Pi looking at him with a velvety fire in his eyes. Never breaking eye contact, Pi slowly pushes in, and Jin winces slightly at the discomfort. He’s surprised when the discomfort passes quickly, to be replaced with a weird sensation of fullness. 

Yamapi’s mouth returns to his cock, and Jin stares mesmerized as Yamapi’s head bobs up and down. He barely notices when Pi slips in another finger, and it shocks him when Pi bends them, pressing up against something inside of him that sends his hips shooting off the bed at the unexpected pleasure. 

“Again,” Jin demands, and Yamapi chuckles around his cock, which makes Jin, shudder as Yamapi searches for that spot again. He finds it, and soon has Jin mewling and writhing on the bed. “Do it,” Jin says, and Yamapi slowly crawls up Jin’s body, supporting his weight with his muscular arm in a sort of one-handed pushup. His other hand lubes his cock, and positions it at Jin’s entrance. 

When he slides in, Yamapi throws his head back, exposing his flushed throat to Jin’s hungry gaze, and it hurts, but Jin doesn’t mind because he loves seeing Yamapi like this, wild and needy and beautiful. And then Yamapi is moving, and it burns but Yamapi hits that spot and the burn is overwhelmed by the pleasure of that touch. Jin is surrounded by the smell of ginger, and warm, hard flesh, and he wonders why it took him so long to realize that this was everything he’s ever needed. That Yamapi is the other half of him in every way. 

Jin is surprised when his orgasm comes crashing through him, wracking his body and sending him soaring out of his own boy in intense bliss. He feels his body tightening around Pi, and Pi gives a helpless moan before he shudders too, arm giving out and dropping him down onto Jin. Jin can hear Yamapi’s heavy breaths in his ear as the man continues to ride out the end of his orgasm. Jin wraps his arms around him, pulling him as close as he can. 

“I want forever,” he murmurs, and he knows Pi can hear him. 

“Me too,” Pi answers, and Jin is on fire with love.

“You gave me a wish,” Jin says, when he is sure Pi is sleeping. “You gave me a wish, and then a different you made it come true.”

Yamapi, Jin realizes, has always been Jin’s everything. Yamapi has always made Jin’s wishes come true. 

***  
When Yamapi turns thirty, he meets a young woman named Sayaka. They become good friends. Jin likes her a lot. 

She does them a tremendous favor.

As Jin holds one of the twin girls to his chest, he wonders if anyone in the world can be happier than he is in this moment. He looks over at Pi, and seeing his glowing face, he hopes at least one man can. 

***

The second time Jin turns 45, he gets home from a photo shoot at midnight, gets a beer out of the fridge, and walks straight to his bedroom, where he curls up on the bed around his lover, draping and arm over the man’s still trim waist. “I’m home,” he says, and Pi blearily opens his eyes and smiles softly. “Welcome home.”

Jin looks at the picture of his family on the nightstand, and smiles as he closes his eyes.


End file.
